Hey, so how about that big shocker that happened on Sister Wives Sunday night when Mariah Brown announced that she’s gay?
She sat down her parents, Kody and Meri Brown, and the other Sister Wives, Robyn, Christine and Janelle — and the cameras, of course — and came right out of that closet.
And good for her, right?
The religion she grew up in, Fundamentalist Mormonism, is strongly against homosexuality, and though her parents have spoken out in support of marriage equality in the past, it still must have been hard for her to come out.
And in a seriously heartbreaking new interview Mariah just did, she confirmed that.
“I remember being in church, and they talked about how being gay was bad,” she says. “One bishop told me gay people were selfish.”
Thankfully, she adds that “None of that came from my parents. It was from church and the people I was around.”
Poor Mariah says that things were so tough when she was younger, that “If you were to ask me my biggest fear, it would have been to be gay.”
“It was something I was so scared of in myself.”
“People say they try to ‘pray away the gay,’ but I wouldn’t even let myself think the word,” she reveals. “I just wouldn’t even go there.”
Mariah recalls that she fought her feelings so hard and tried to repress everything that she began suffering from insomnia and anxiety.
Things were like that for a long time, but then when she was a senior in college, she met a gay man while touring a college, and she had a long talk with him.
“That was sort of the start of realizing this is okay,” she says. “My whole life I tried to shut it out. I was finally letting myself be real.”
“I had this image I had to uphold, and when I started letting that go, I realized I didn’t have to be the person I thought I had to be.”
And that was true — every single one of her parents fully support her.
Her mother, Meri, says “I’m so proud of her for having the strength.”
Her father, Kody, explains that “You come from an Old Testament religion, you are not excited that your child comes out. I thought about this years ago, and I made a decision.”
“My job as a dad,” he says, “is to love and respect and not to judge.”
As for Janelle, she states that “We’re just happy she’s figured out who she is. It’s tremendous when you see a kid do that.”
Christine says that when Mariah came out, “Everyone jumped up and hugged her and congratulated her.”
“She is so radiant and just so beautiful that when she tells people I feel like most of them will be ok because she is so confident and so secure with being gay. It’s wonderful.”
And Robyn concludes with “No matter what our religion says, what my heart says is that she is our daughter and she is a person and she has a right to her truth.”
It’s enough to warm your heart, right?
Way to come through, Sister Wives. Way to be.